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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Queensland's 2026-27 Budget, delivered on Tuesday 23 June, contains no change to land tax rates, land tax thresholds or the surcharges charged to foreign owners. The accounting firm BDO, in an analysis published the same day, described the property tax settings as steady, with holding costs for owners unchanged. For the state's property investors, who had spent the previous six weeks absorbing a rewrite of federal tax rules, the State's contribution was to leave things as they were.
Two measures do touch investment in housing. The Budget makes it easier for foreign-owned developers to obtain relief from the State's foreign surcharges, and it removes temporary residents from the transfer duty concessions for homes. PwC's tax alert of 26 June puts numbers on both.
Queensland Revenue Office land tax rates; BDO, Queensland State Budget 2026-27, 23 June 2026; PwC tax alert, 26 June 2026.
What the Budget changed and what it left
The Queensland Revenue Office published a notice on Budget day listing the revenue measures it will administer. There are three. The $30,000 First Home Owner Grant continues for eligible contracts signed from 1 July 2026. Eligibility for the transfer duty home concessions is limited to Australian citizens, permanent residents and specified foreign retirees for transactions entered into from 1 August 2026. And a payroll tax rebate for apprentices and trainees is extended to 30 June 2027. The office says further detail will follow once legislation has passed.
Land tax is not on that list, and neither BDO nor PwC found a change to it in the Budget papers. BDO's summary is that there are no substantive changes to land tax rates or to foreign surcharge settings.
| Measure | What happens | From |
|---|---|---|
| Land tax rates and thresholds | No change | - |
| Foreign duty and land tax surcharges | Rates unchanged | - |
| Relief from those surcharges for developers | Qualifying threshold cut from 50 dwellings to 20, with pre-approval | Not stated |
| Home duty concessions | Temporary residents no longer eligible | 1 August 2026 |
| First Home Owner Grant | $30,000 continues | 1 July 2026 |
Queensland Revenue Office notice, 23 June 2026; BDO, 23 June 2026; PwC, 26 June 2026.
Land tax as it stands
Because nothing changed, the tables on the Revenue Office's website are the ones that will apply to the assessment based on land owned at 30 June 2026.
Related readUnlicensed short-stay manager fined: what Queensland owners should checkAn individual pays land tax when the total taxable value of their Queensland land is $600,000 or more. The Revenue Office says land used as the owner's home may be exempt, so for most individuals the taxable total is the land under their investment properties. Between $600,000 and $999,999 the tax is $500 plus 1 cent for each dollar above $600,000. From $1 million to $2,999,999 it is $4,500 plus 1.65 cents for each dollar above $1 million.
Companies and trustees start much lower. They pay from a taxable value of $350,000, at $1,450 plus 1.7 cents for each dollar above that figure, up to $2,249,999.
The difference between the two schedules is easiest to see on the same land values. The figures below apply the Revenue Office's formulas to three example totals.
| Taxable land value | Individual | Company or trustee |
|---|---|---|
| $500,000 | $0 | $4,000 |
| $900,000 | $3,500 | $10,800 |
| $1,200,000 | $7,800 | $15,900 |
Illustrative figures calculated from the Queensland Revenue Office's published rates for individuals and for companies and trustees. No surcharge or exemption is applied.
Land tax is charged on the value of land, not of buildings, and on the owner's total, not property by property. An investor with two units whose share of the land under each is modest may owe nothing, while one house on a large inner-city lot can exceed the threshold alone. With no indexation of the thresholds in this Budget, an owner's bill moves only with the valuations.
Easier surcharge relief for developers
Queensland charges foreign buyers and owners more. A foreign person acquiring residential land pays additional foreign acquirer duty on top of ordinary transfer duty, and foreign companies and trusts pay a land tax surcharge, which the Revenue Office's rate page puts at 3 per cent of taxable value above $350,000. Absentee individuals pay a surcharge as well.
Related readBank figures put investors at 35.6 per cent of new home loans in JuneThose charges were designed for foreign purchasers of homes. They also catch Australian-based developers that happen to be foreign-owned, including some of the groups that build apartment towers and housing estates. Queensland has for some years offered such developers relief, on the reasoning that their activity adds to the supply of housing.
The Budget widens the door. According to PwC, the qualifying threshold falls from 50 dwellings constructed to 20, the contribution of closely related corporations will be assessed more holistically, and a pre-approval process is introduced so a developer can know its position before committing to a site. BDO describes the change as a streamlined relief process for eligible property developers, covering both the additional duty and the land tax surcharge.
The Budget's own estimate, reported by both firms, is that the more generous arrangements will cost about $66.2 million in revenue over five years.
The relief is aimed at entities that build. It does nothing for a foreign individual buying an apartment to rent out, who continues to pay the additional duty at purchase and the surcharge each year. Its effect on other investors is indirect: a foreign-owned builder that completes 20 homes instead of 50 can now seek relief on the land it holds while building.
Temporary residents move to the standard duty rate
The second measure narrows a concession. Queensland's transfer duty concessions for a home, a first home and vacant land for a first home have until now been available to buyers who met the residence requirements, whatever their visa status. From 1 August 2026 the buyer must be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or a specified foreign retiree.
Related readFrom 1 July the ATO applies its holiday home test to rental claimsPwC's alert spells out the consequence. Temporary residents who buy a home to live in will pay duty at the standard rate, the one that applies to investors and other purchases, and the Budget expects the change to reduce revenue forgone by $28.9 million over four years. Holders of retirement visas in subclasses 405 and 410 keep their existing treatment.
This is a home buyer measure more than an investor one, but it belongs in an investor's reading of the Budget for two reasons. It applies the investor rate of duty to a new group of purchasers, which marginally changes who is competing at what cost. And it is the only place in the Budget where the State raised more from residential property at all.
Queensland beside the other states
The national law firm King & Wood Mallesons compared the state and territory budgets in a note dated 25 June. On land tax, it found only one jurisdiction disclosing a change: South Australia, which lifted its thresholds by about 12.4 per cent for 2026-27. For Queensland the firm lists the 1 August change to duty concessions, the payroll tax rebate and the first home grant, and nothing on land tax.
South Australia's adjustment points to what Queensland did not do. A threshold that moves with land values keeps the same owners in and out of the tax from year to year. A threshold that stays at $600,000 while values rise brings more owners over the line and moves others up the scale, without any decision being announced.
Related readATO figures: more than half of landlords now report a rental lossKPMG's summary of the Queensland Budget, also dated 25 June, mentions no land tax measure either. It records the duty change and the first home grant as the property items.
A quiet State Budget in a loud year
The Budget arrived between two federal events. Federal Parliament passed the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax on 25 June, two days after the Treasurer rose in Brisbane, and the Act received assent on 26 June. From 1 July 2027 a loss on an established rental home bought after the federal Budget night can be used only against rental income.
That federal change raises the importance of every holding cost, because a cost that cannot be offset against wages has to be met from rent. Land tax is one of the larger ones for an investor with more than a single property. Had the State chosen this Budget to raise it, the two changes would have compounded. It did not.
Investors should not read that as a commitment. The Budget sets rates for one year, and the Revenue Office's notice says only that details of the announced measures will follow legislation. What the papers show is that for 2026-27 the State has left the cost of holding Queensland land where it was.
What happens next
Land tax for 2026-27 is assessed on land owned at midnight on 30 June 2026, under the rates described above. Assessment notices follow during the financial year.
The duty change for temporary residents starts with transactions entered into from 1 August. On the Revenue Office's wording the test is when the transaction is entered into, not when it settles.
The duty change depends on legislation, and the Revenue Office has said it will publish the details once that has passed. The summaries read for this article do not give a start date for the wider developer relief. Developers who may now qualify at 20 dwellings will be watching for the terms of the pre-approval process, which determines how early in a project the relief can be relied on.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
